something borrowed something broken
by marianne in chains
Summary: Don't you ever wonder what happened to Riku in the days leading up to his transformation? [RikuSora. RikuRoxas]And everything is wrong because I almost feel
1. master

right. 13 fics- following one another. on the subject of riku and roxas. "subtle differences" isn't connected to this at all. kh isn't mine, being squeenix and disney's.

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something borrowed something broken/

something bartered something sold

-theme: i. master.

The first time Riku leaves to find Sora's other half DiZ grabs his wrist and pulls him backwards, a warning on his lips. His eyelids flutter desperately against the blindfold, but he doesn't need to see those eyes to know what he's being told. He is not the keyblade master, he is not, Sora is. Sora is who they need and who they want and Riku is just a pawn, roped in by his own passions and desires. A pawn of his good intentions and his hopelessly failed (failing doomed to fail) romance with Sora.

When Oblivion and Oathkeeper sing against his Souleater, then, he's in shock and wonders if Roxas knows that he's the shadow of something perfect. He lets himself fall to the ground, empty handed, as the blue-eyed Nobody spits questions he won't answer out into the air. A metallic tang echoes in his voice and his eyes, a layer of steel behind the silk mask cut and crudely sown from Sora.

If he's anything like Sora, he will lose. Riku moves like the rain caught on the wind and Souleater presses down on Oathkeeper, Oblivion pinioned by a booted foot. Anger snaps and rages out of the face that he's been dreaming of for years, a snarl on lips that have only ever smiled. Roxas lashes out with a strength less like Sora's and more like Riku's- a strength born of anger and desperation. He will not lose.

Riku takes the opportunity to leave and think on this new development, disappearing as Roxas curses him, taking careful notice of him in the very way Sora never did. Aqua-green eyes hollow out and accept the pressing darkness, second-sight afforded by battle and obsession quickly fading. DiZ raises an eyebrow at him and Riku grins. No, he says, I did not find Sora.

I found something far better.


	2. freedom

something borrowed something broken/

something bartered something sold

theme ii. freedom.

When Riku needs to think, like he does now, after meeting Sora's shadow, he visits his friend. Between his blindfold and the protective petals of Sora's prison, he cannot actually see the boy, but it helps to know he's there. He places one black gloved hand (he's not pure enough to let it touch his skin)on the glassand whispers his everything to Sora. Now he can't say anything, because what would he?

I met your shadow today and we fought in the rain. He has your eyes and your face but someone else's hair and he's only your shadow (the shadow of something perfect) but he's different and more perfect to me than you ever were. I don't know his name or his smile but I imagine they're like yours. I hope you're not upset because every other moment I've only ever wanted to make you happy and you've only ever loved her and if this breaks you it will break me and her and no one will pick up the pieces.

But either way, Sora won't listen and Sora won't answer, so Riku wonders if these visits are ever worth it. Maybe if he doesn't need Sora (he's broken those damn red strings that bound him from the first day and restrung them from fingertip to fingertip, because that's where shadows come from and he and Roxas-whose-name-he-doesn't-know are only shadows) he needs his other. He knows he needs someone (something?) and Sora has set him free or maybe he's freed himself.

The whiteness of the room stretches forever around him and Sora, agoraphobia settling into his soul. He wonders, dully, if the King has arrived yet. Mickey, he knows, will come to find him. To watch out for poor, confused Riku who, being neither a Princess of Heart nor Sora, has darkness in his heart. He knows that Sora has a dark side, but it was drained out and emptied into the boy he fought earlier (so much more real, and vicious and alive than Sora) and what remains is more of a subtle shading than a deepening shadow.

His hand, resting on Sora's cage, contracts into a fist and he storms out of the room. He can feel those strings cut into his flesh because, apparently, he will never be free of Sora and his shadow. DiZ refuses to acknowledge him when he enters, and continues to do so until Riku forcibly turns him around to face him. For all the rage coursing through him, his voice is surprisingly calm and controlled.

What are you going to do with Sora's memories? Is Naminé going to put them all back in place? The bandaged man's silence does nothing to deter him. Make her change them. I want her to change them. I don't want him to remember me; I need him to forget me. Please, please. His voice cracks a little on the last syllable, but DiZ tactfully ignores it and turns around, his back giving Riku all the answers he needs.

As the portal to the darkness opens on the far wall and Riku dives into it, searching for the blond boy he needs to know, he has to wonder if the subtle burning sensation is that of fate sundering.


	3. valor

a.n/ XD this is the crack!chapter. but it got me out of my block, so, yay. I wish I could do longer chaps, but, I cna't. WOE. Also, the first 6 are going to be RIku POV, seventh a joint Riku/Roxas POV and the last six are Roxas reflecting. (I think of it as a parabola, but...I dunno.) Oh, and KH isn't mine. ;; if it was there would be Akuroku sans angst.

theme iii. valor

Their second meeting is more of a continuation of their first than anything else. The blond Sora smirks from under his hood and swipes Oathkeeper through the air threateningly. Riku chokes on his hysterical laughter, because it looks like nothing but Sora playing make believe and trying to be cool. He's probably pouting because his disguise didn't get the proper reaction out of Riku; oh god, this is what crazy feels like, isn't it?

He snaps out of it just in time to stop Oblivion from parting his head from his shoulders. The chafing on his cheekbones distracts him, as his eyes dart back and forth in animal confusion, leaving almost-Sora an opening which, of course, he takes. It wasn't a fair move, and Riku barely stops himself from asking Sora what the hell he's playing at before he remembers that this isn't Sora and he doesn't exactly have any valor either, kicking out and catching his opponent in the knees. The other boy hisses and jumps back, allowing Riku to struggle to his feet.

Why do you have a keyblade, the blond boy snaps, I'm the keyblade master. And he looks so serious (because Riku can see everything without his eyes, oh, and the hood has fallen down to his shoulders) that it's horribly amusing; the boy obviously doesn't remember Sora. Riku is tempted to pull the blindfold from his eyes and let his face be seen, to see if it jogs memory, but he's too afraid. If the shadow rejects him, Sora has rejected him and the thought has haunted him for years. He settles for a quiet chuckle and shake of his head.

You don't know anything, do you? You aren't anything. Not a keyblade master, not even a real person. The words are accidents, and oh, how he wishes he could take them back. But then the face before him contorts in fierce anger and rage, no tears that Sora would have shed, and Riku doesn't feel quite so bad. This isn't Sora, and he couldn't hate him more for it. Hate him for making him love this, this mockery. He would stay and confront this boy whose name, he notes idly, he doesn't even know.

But he's a coward, so he flees into the comfort of darkness.


	4. wisdom

disclm: Not mine. D:

a/n: Four chapters of nothing but Riku!angst. I AM TEH BROKEN. Next chapter, y'all, next chapter. There will be boytouching if I have to...if I have to forsake my English reports. D: The quoted Ansem REport is number 13, found in Final Mix. 8D

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theme iv. wisdom

"An existence neither of darkness nor of light.  
An in-between existence.  
Cast off by the heart, a mere shell, one who begrudges both the darkness and the light.

This mystery cannot be easily resolved.  
The relationship between the heart and the flesh is a complex one.

But since we exist here, they cannot be termed as existent.  
Therefore I shall call them...

"The non-existent ones."

He's said those words to himself a thousand times since asking DiZ what had happened to Sora. He'd gotten more of an explanation than he'd liked, with ominous tones and the lurking feeling that DiZ knew something Riku didn't. Now Roxas' face , though he knows not that name, echoes in his mind and a little voice jeers at him, his bad luck, and his heart all shredded, oh isn't it pretty? He tries to sew it back together with hate, hate himself, fool that he is, hate Sora for all those years of unconscious rejection, Roxas for not being Sora and for being him, and hate, hate, hate, Ansem the Wise for everything, everything.

The oppressive silence in the computer room tells him that Mickey has not come and Sora has not woken, that all is going poorly and he's to blame; he can't bear to bring back Sora's shadow like an animal to slaughter. He's not real, he isn't real, it doesn't matter. But they are only words and Riku lost his faith in words a long time ago when he realized all Maleficent spouted were pretty lies and for every time he said he'd save Kairi he failed to and let Sora have her. Maybe it wasn't so long ago but the darkness can do funny things to you, like addle your brain and infect your eyes with the truth and make you fall in love with shadows.

It's very fitting, he thinks. All his new worlds rolled up and locked away from him and all he's got left is data and a world that never was. All his love for light and sky turned around and painted on a shadow that won't (can't) ever care. He can't beat the darkness like he is; a pale sliver of dawn that longs to fade away, since nothing's left and colors are just too bright. (He once saw Sora's bright red jumpsuit and it made him wince and close his eyes.) He has to become the darkness and Ansem's voice chuckles within him; I knew you would come back to me, you will always come back to me, you are mine.

Riku wants to scream but there's no one to hear him. He wants to find his blond (when did he become his) enigma and learn his name, and know him just once, as himself. From the way Ansem is laughing he doubts he'll ever be himself again and, oh, he can't ever let Sora know. A shake of his head banishes Sora from his thought (he finds it's getting easier, but is that good or bad?) and leaves again.

DiZ warns, without words; You had better bring him back. But Riku knows he won't, not this time, but the next, when an extra foot and some forty-five odd pounds give him an advantage the other boy can't surmount; the iron-fisted control over darkness giving him a power that has already consumed him once.

And, oh, how he wishes it would again.


	5. mystery

a/n: this is my fav. part. it may be modified and turned into a one-shot, but enjoy for now.

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theme vi. mystery

Riku arrives in the almost-world to find almost-Sora almost waiting for him. It is dangerously close to everything he has ever wanted, but when the blues eyes that lock with his narrow in anger, he remembers. Riku does not get what he wants, because he forfeited that right a long, long time ago.

(_thought you died out there in the wild. somewhere on the far side of the world,)_

He does not attack because this is last time, something tells him, and he wants to remember this- the harsh glare of neon lights, soft susurrations of wind through raindrops, and the subtle scent of darkness. After the sand and sunlight faded from his mind- whether from Naminé's influence or not- he has learned to observe and to remember. Someone- no one, really- is watching him curiously, because he is only a year or so old, after all, and he's never seen someone stop before a battle like Riku has.

It's painfully Sora-esque. Riku thinks about leaving and running and pretending none of this ever happened, but the blond boy speaks and everything changes (again). Who are you why are you here I just want to be somebody- Riku has never had the answers. He never has. A graceful shrug of shoulders and his name rolls of his tongue. Maybe Sora remembers him, and maybe. And maybe.

(because that is all he has ever said)

Roxas.

stop. freeze. shatter. sky.

roxasroxasroxasorasorasoroxas

There is a name to go with the face now, a person who is no longer just Sora's shadow. Riku couldn't be happier because now he can pretend that Sora isn't real and they are strangers meeting for the first time because one of them left his umbrella at home and the other is offering to share.

No one has umbrellas on Destiny Islands, even though it rains, because-

(you've forgotten-don't you remember?)

No one in this city has umbrellas either- because it rains. It is only rain. The rain obscures Riku's vision as he watches himself (is this dying) let Roxas approach tentatively. The next thing he registers is that the boy tastes like sea-salt ice cream, which is horrible fitting and completely out of place and the boy has a name. Roxas. He moans it and rolls it around his mouth, and memorizes it in every way possible.

Roxas' lips are soft and pliant against his, though Riku has no real standard of comparison, just the whisper of a memory that isn't his. Roxas, whose tongue enters his mouth with a certain amount of expertise, Riku notes, has no heart. In every sense of the word- if Ansem the Wise is right, and he always is because he is the Wise. Lucky, lucky not to feel guilt and shame when he walks away from this, to not feel betrayal and rejection.

Roxas is crying, wet and salty and warm-

and it is like something Riku almost knows, somewhere in his almost-memory. He doesn't need to ask for an explanation.

Because I cannot, cannot love you and everything is wrong because I almost feel-


	6. hope

This is an INTERLUDE. Primarily to demonstrate that hope has no place in their relationship. Also, the weird style is um...I guess I saw it as a video in my mind, all stop-starty and such. And maybe a conversation. Yes, perhaps. Will be a bit more normal next chap.

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vii. hope

(interlude)

We'll go together.

I would miss you.

together. _together_

miss you…would….I…miss…you.

A butterfly with blue wings like a girl's eyes like a boy's eyes like the sea and the sky and- oh. No, maybe something else, then. Red sunset like a girl's hair and a boy's clothes and the roof of a house and

-his hair. A boy's hair? A man's hair?

Go. Go together. Just the two of us. I'm leaving-no one will miss me. We'll go together. Just the two of us. No one will miss-us, together, just the two of miss you would the two of us go…

Gold-golden. Yellow? Bright. Like someone's (him) eyes and a boy's hair and a girl's hair and the sun. Not here, no. Elsewhere. With the butterfly and a girl and a boy and sea and sky-oh.

We'll go together. I'll miss you.

Black. Blackblackblack like the rain.

Yes, like hope.

We'll go together.

_together together _just the two of us _alone_

I'll miss you.

miss you…I….would…miss…me?

Black rain on a blue butterfly and a red sunset on gold-golden boy's hair girl's hair and grey grey grey.

miss you. miss you. miss…you….mi-

together.

black-like hope

no.


End file.
